Turkey elects ruling party MP as speaker
Move reduces prospects of a grand coalition between the assembly’s two biggest parties
Turkey’s parliament voted along party lines yesterday to elect as its speaker Ismet Yilmaz, Defence Minister from the ruling AK Party, reducing prospects of a grand coalition between the assembly’s two biggest parties.
Had a consensus
candidate been elected speaker, it could have pointed to a coalition between the AKP, which finished first in a June 7 ballot but was deprived a majority, and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Differences
But the voting pattern pointed more in the direction of a coalition between the AKP and the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
All coalition options could be hampered by differences over domestic and foreign policies and by AKP founder and president Tayyip Erdogan’s determination to play a pivotal role in government. The election dashed his immediate ambition to imbue his largely symbolic presidency with sweeping executive powers.
Yilmaz’s 258 votes in the fourth round of voting for the speakership, a largely procedural but symbolically important role, in the 550-seat assembly reflected the number of seats held by the AKP.
The centre-left CHP put forth veteran politician Deniz Baykal, hoping he could attract votes from the Islamist-rooted AKP and other parties and signal cooperation in the first parliament not dominated by an AKP majority since 2002.
An AKP-CHP coalition would have likely been fragile, but analysts said it could help placate jittery foreign investors and revive attempts to end a 30-year Kurdish insurgency.
Turkey’s Nato allies are also eager to see a stable government able to cope with hazards posed by wars across its borders in Syria and Iraq.